Southern Africa felt nastiest sting of Omicron travel bans, new study finds

Southern Africa was the most targeted region by the “emergency brake” travel bans imposed by high-income countries after the identification of the Omicron variant by SA scientists in November, a new study suggests.

The study by Georgetown University in the US analysed more than 200 travel policies issued in the three weeks after SA’s announcement about the discovery of the variant.

It looked at whether policies targeted travellers from specific countries or focused more broadly on enhanced screening.

Researchers found that the travel bans, initially by the UK then other European countries, universally focused on entry bans and flight suspensions from Southern Africa.

These restrictions continued to target travel from these countries even after community transmission of the Omicron was detected in other parts of the world, they said.

The main countries targeted were SA, Eswatini, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Namibia. A second tier of countries included Zambia, Angola and Malawi, followed by Nigeria and Egypt.

Most of the restrictions permitted repatriation of citizens and residents with additional testing and quarantine requirements.

Only after three weeks were enhanced screening policies considered while strict testing and quarantine requirements were implemented by some countries, “creating logistical complications and burdening travellers with costs”.

Researchers found that response measures to the Omicron variant were rarely tied to specific criteria or adapted to match the unique epidemiology of the new variant.

SA was the first country to flag the highly transmissible variant at the end of November through its world-class genomics facilities. By the time the variant was discovered it had been in circulation for about a month and scientists said it might not have originated in Africa.

Africa was the only region in which more than half of Omicron response policies focused on universal entry requirements, with a few specific entry bans.

Policies in Europe were largely aligned with an “emergency brake” activated by the EU, which recommended temporary restrictions on all travel from SA.

Restrictions ranged from unsupervised quarantine at home to strict monitoring in designated hotels. Many quarantine policies required travellers to bear quarantine costs, occasionally requiring travellers to pre-purchase quarantine packages.

Of 81 policies addressing testing, 51 specified that PCR tests were required, while nine explicitly allowed either PCR or rapid antigen tests.

Pre-travel periods for test validity ranged from 24 to 120 hours, with 72 hours being most common.

Some countries in Africa required their own citizens to present negative PCR tests before exiting the country, regardless of destination, to mitigate targeted restrictions from other nations.

Lead researcher Jordan Schermerhorn said the disconnect between travel restrictions and Omicron transmission patterns “provides a basis to inform evidence-based control measures for future virus mitigation efforts”.

The confusion and disarray surrounding travel restrictions not only affected public control measures but were a disservice to travellers, he said.

“Future mitigation efforts for new emerging variants or other viruses should aim to improve the alignment between response approaches and knowledge about the epidemiology of transmission.

“As we build the evidence base for what measures are most effective at minimising the spread of infectious disease across international borders, we hope to see a more risk-based approach to political travel decisions.”

TimesLIVE